Hopes of finding new owners for Perini Navi have taken another blow with no potential suitors submitting bids for the Italian builder before the deadline for a second bankruptcy auction.
A base price of €53.5million along with a fixed security deposit of €10million was set for the second auction, with the deadline for bids passing yesterday (Wednesday 29 September). As was the case with the first auction in July, no bidders came forward.
The base price had been dropped from the €62.5million figure set for the first auction, however concerns were voiced by a number of figures in the industry that the price was still too high.
At last week’s Monaco Yacht Show Alberto Galassi, CEO of the Ferretti Group, indicated his misgivings over the price as well as the costs to restart operations, with Perini Navi having shut down just before the pandemic started. Massimo Perotti, president and CEO of Sanlorenzo, was equally foreboding when he spoke to Italian media earlier this month, pointing out the yard had lost €180million in the past nine years.
Perini Navi was founded in 1983 and is well known for building luxury sailing yachts, most notably 88m (288ft) Maltese Falcon, which was delivered in 2006 and won ten industry awards including the Sailing Yacht of the Year in the World Superyacht Awards.
However, it was officially declared bankrupt in January 2021 after a tumultuous 24 months that saw it report losses of over €80million in 2019 and enter into insolvency proceedings in May 2020.
A number of parties expressed their interest before the initial auction for the yard’s assets which included its Viareggio and La Spezia shipyards, which are valued at €23.5million and €21million respectively, land in Pisa, a boat under construction and its brands and patents, however no formal bids were made.
We are currently waiting to hear the next steps in the proceedings, which may see the judge overseeing the insolvency setting a third auction date and base price.
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